'beyondmemory' is an open call which invites artists to reflect on contemporary photography and videos role in perceiving history and collective memory. The project is based on an idea suggested by the curator Marinella Paderni, and is a collaboration between Fondazione Studio Marangoni and Celeste Network.

Theme

Memory has been for centuries a communitys natural repository of symbolic and mythical meaning; a combination of true stories and fantastical representations, which mixed, history with poetry, reality with art, artistic conjecture with collective unconscious, the universal with the singular. With the end of dogmas and grand ideological narratives, memory is no longer a producer of myths, rather it survives as the basis for a search of truth, taking up the role of instrument of knowledge, of historical production and verification of information. The idea that memory is repository of a single, absolute truth, has been replaced in our information age by the notion of many memories: micro-truths without universal authenticity which act on the knowledge and production of history. In particular, according to Michel Foucaults view, photography has given birth to the idea of archive as a repository of memory and a fundamental building-block of the present.

'beyondmemory' reflects on photography and videos role in the perception of history and collective memory, with particular attention given to the importance of archives and photographic documents in artistic research a cultural phenomenon which the philosopher Jacques Derrida called le mal darchive.